A concept that has been discussed recently is to deploy a service cloud locally in a cellular network. Such a locally deployed service cloud may also be referred to as Local Service Cloud (LSC). An LSC may be collocated with a base station of the cellular network. In this case, traffic to the backhaul transport network can be reduced as the traffic is locally routed between the base station and the LSC without passing the core network. As a consequence, the end to end delay and thus the application response time can be reduced. Such a service cloud may be considered a pool of server hardware and/or virtual machines (VMs) hosting third party services and operator services, but potentially also transport and network related features such as compression.
Traffic from a User Equipment (UE) to an application in the LSC can be broken out locally by the base station. A technique for local break-out (sometimes also referred to as local breakout or local break out or in short just LBO) of traffic is, for example, described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,385,290 B2. In U.S. Pat. No. 8,385,290 B2, a method and apparatus for handling an LBO session taking place in a first network between a UE and a corresponding node (CN) is described. Another LBO technique is disclosed by CA2718055 C. In CA2718055 C, LBO is provided by one or more nodes (e.g., a local access point and/or a local gateway) in a wireless network to facilitate access to one or more local services. Further, WO 2010/086014 A1 describes a method and device for data processing in an access point supporting LBO.
The LBO function may be or comprise a router that has Internet Protocol (IP) filters that inspect the passing IP packets and filter out packets which are routed to other networks (for example, a home-network) or to a local cloud such as an LSC. Thus, the locally broken out traffic, which may also be called LBO traffic is routed locally to the LSC rather than being transmitted to the core network of the cellular network. As a consequence, functionalities residing in the core network such as Legal Intercept (sometimes also referred to as Lawful Intercept, Legal Interception, Lawful Interception or in short just LI) and charging and policy control functions are not in the path of the LBO traffic. Thus, such regular core network functionality cannot act on the locally generated traffic and apply LI and/or charging. On the other hand, certain services and applications can greatly profit in usability and efficiency if they are performed in a LSC.